Chapter 356
Chapter 356
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 356
Tiny cracks began to form in Count Hail Selmier's expression as he directed the Empire Coalition's side of the battle.
By all rights, this should have been the moment to bear down hard on the Holy Empire's forces, but the fact that the Empire Coalition held only a narrow advantage gnawed at him.
"Damn it..."
Setting aside the opening phase of the chaotic melee, the overall flow of battle clearly favored the Empire Coalition.
At that moment, unless a massive host rose from the ground and attacked them, victory was as good as the Empire Coalition's.
Once a battle line begins to give way, reversing it is agonizingly difficult.
The problem lay elsewhere.
"Who the hell is commanding the left flank!"
Count Selmier roared, and Viscount Ray Philious, positioned behind him, answered.
"It was Viscount Duo."
"Was?"
"He fell in the melee. A baron under his command has assumed control, or so we are told."
Count Selmier erupted again at Viscount Philious's reply.
"What sort of wretch is this baron, to handle his troops in such a fashion!"
"Baron Demon is known to me, and I understand him to be a fairly capable commander—"
"A capable man deploys his forces like that!"
Viscount Philious flushed and bowed his head beneath Count Selmier's bellowing.
Count Selmier was right. The left-flank units were scattered in disarray, as though no one had properly pulled them together. Viscount Philious, head still lowered, retreated a step and summoned a wizard.
Watching him, Selmier forced down the anger that had crept up inside him and turned his gaze back to the battlefield. It was not merely the left flank. Across the entire force, troop management had turned ragged and undisciplined.
"I know it was sudden, but even so—we prepared for a melee before we committed, and this is the best we can manage...?"
"Baron Demon of the left flank has also been killed, sir!"
"What?"
The words Viscount Philious delivered before Count Selmier's anger had even cooled only fueled it further.
"Then dispatch commanders from the command staff! Is that not what they are for!"
"Every commander in the command staff has already been committed, sir!"
"What?"
Count Selmier looked as though he had been struck over the head, his expression blank. Then, praying his fears were unfounded, he swept the battlefield with a near-frantic eye.
"My lord Count..."
"Th-this can't be..."
Viscount Philious's worried voice no longer reached his ears.
The longer he studied the battlefield, the clearer it became that his anxiety was anything but groundless.
"Report the status of the other commanders—now!"
"Y-yes, my lord."
Count Selmier's flustered tone made Viscount Philious sense that something had gone deeply wrong, and he hurriedly called for the wizard. As the wizard's voice relayed the information, Philious's face drained of color.
"D-damn it."
Philious, now utterly pale, approached Count Selmier with a low curse. Then he spoke with a devastated expression.
"Every commander except Count Holman, who leads the central main force, has been killed. Some units reportedly have no officer above a baronet left."
"Graaah!"
A roar of fury burst from Count Selmier's lips.
They had been thoroughly outmaneuvered.
On the battlefield, protecting the commander is the highest priority.
In a large-scale engagement like this, three or four wizards and scores of knights are routinely attached to each corps commander for protection.
And yet, even with heavier-than-usual protective escorts assigned in anticipation of a melee, commanders were being killed. This could not be anything but deliberate.
"Philious! Commit every last man in the command staff to the field at once. We cannot allow this godforsaken situation to worsen!"
"Understood."
No sooner had Count Selmier given the order than Viscount Philious was relaying commands to the bustling knights. Moments later, the Empire Coalition command staff, with Count Selmier's command banner at their head, spurred their horses toward the battlefield.
The face of Count Holman, who led the Empire Coalition's center, was etched with urgency.
"Baron Philip! Where is he!"
"K-killed, my lord!"
"Then who is in command of the Center First Corps!"
"We cannot reach them!"
He too had been frustrated with subordinate commanders who failed to respond cohesively to his orders as the melee dragged on, and he too began to sense that the overall battle was turning strange. By the time he confirmed it, however, it was already too late.
"Kraaagh!"
"H-hold them!"
Men dying on a battlefield is not, in itself, unusual.
But the frantic cries now reaching Count Holman's ears were unusual, and more than enough to set off alarms.
Holman's head turned instinctively, and his eyes fell upon Holy Empire mercenaries driving straight into his front.
"What are you all doing! Guard commander, stop those men at once!"
The commander of the knight order charged with Count Holman's protection bellowed. But what came back was a scream.
"The guard commander has already been slain!"
"What?"
"Not only that—many of the knights assigned to each unit are nowhere to be seen!"
A blood-spattered veteran soldier came rushing up, shouting as if possessed. Count Holman swept his gaze over the surroundings.
"Could the Holy Empire be targeting..."
The command elements of every corps—each comprising ten thousand men—were in chaos. No, looking more carefully, the banners of the thousand-man sub-units and the two-hundred-man subordinate units were scarcely visible anymore.
"Assess the status of the lower-echelon units!"
"Kraaagh! H-hold th—"
Count Holman's urgent shout was swallowed by someone's death scream. And that scream came from the very direction where the Holy Empire mercenaries had been.
"Fear not, my lord Count. All guard knights—slaughter those wretches!"
The commander of Count Holman's guard knight order gave the command in a proud, ringing voice, and some twenty knights cut through the melee, spurring their horses toward the mercenaries' front.
"The enemy command staff is riding onto the field."
"Keh. Finally caught on, have they?"
Koyo Blamir, his entire body stained crimson with blood, wore a heavy smile as he slung his greatsword over his shoulder. Then he strolled about, surveying his surroundings as if out for a walk.
Of course, the Empire Coalition soldiers who rushed toward him never made it past his disciples nearby, meeting only death.
"Casualties are heavier than anticipated."
Charles, the mercenary wizard in Blamir's retinue, spoke with a note of regret.
"Keh. Losses we already expected."
Blamir nodded at Charles's comment.
This battle had been a gamble laced with recklessness from the start. The conscripts who had been levied for it were mostly collapsed on the ground, drawing their last breaths, or lying upon the crimson-soaked earth, their bodies utterly drained of warm blood and growing cold.
"It seems we have largely achieved the results we anticipated."
Charles, who had grown increasingly agitated as time wore on, spoke as if subtly urging a withdrawal.
But Blamir—whether he did not grasp the roundabout persuasion, or simply did not wish to—turned his gaze elsewhere, searching for further prey.
"Keh-heh."
Again, that eerie laugh escaped him.
His eyes caught sight of mercenaries being cut down by the scores of knights who had intercepted them. Where his gaze lingered was precisely the location of Count Holman and the central force.
"If it's the command staff, they'll be merging with the center."
His murderous smile spread slowly wider.
Watching Blamir, Charles could not help but form a grim premonition—and that premonition, regrettably, proved correct.
"Keh. Something was missing. That ought to do it."
With those final words, he moved toward the mercenaries being butchered by the knight order.
THUD-THUD-THUD!
Count Selmier, riding hard toward the central force that commanded the entire host, forced his impatience down as best he could. A supreme commander's agitation was more dangerous than any failure of tactics or strategy.
"Ah!"
Count Selmier heard Viscount Philious's startled cry beside him. And he, too, could not keep himself from making the same sound.
"Prepare to charge!"
Count Selmier bypassed Viscount Philious entirely and shouted the order directly to the knight order.
The situation had grown that desperate.
Count Holman's central command formation—perfectly intact only moments ago—was now wavering precariously.
It was engulfed in the melee.
Kraaaagh!
"Wh-what is that?"
Amid a tremendous scream, a fully armored knight was hurled skyward. More precisely, it was only his upper body—everything below the torso was gone. From that moment, the ranks of the central command's guard knights began to collapse.
"What in the world is it!"
A question expecting no answer tore from Count Selmier's throat.
At that very instant, another knight lost his head and tumbled from his horse. Through the gap, a greatsword dyed crimson came into view.
'He's no ordinary mercenary!'
A sharp warning blared through Count Selmier's mind. Astride horses that ought to have been carrying Empire Coalition knights, several mercenaries had taken their places and were cutting down yet more knights.
The skill of each individual mercenary was, at the very least, a match for any knight—if not greater.
"Th-that's impossible!"
"What is it?"
Just then, Viscount Philious's voice burst out, nearly a shriek. Count Selmier turned at the sound and followed Philious's gaze, spotting the greatsword he had glimpsed moments before.
It was so enormous that it caught the eye even without deliberate attention.
No, more precisely, it was cleaving an armored human being cleanly in two from the crown of the head straight down—so it was harder not to notice.
The problem was not the greatsword. It was the owner of the split body.
"Holman!"
An anguished cry burst from Count Selmier's lips.
The man so wretchedly cleaved in two was none other than Count Holman—Count Selmier's dear friend, who had commanded the center and led the battle.
Patter-patter.
The corpse, split in two, sprayed blood like a fountain—it was a wonder where a small human body had stored so much blood.
"Keh-hahahahaha!"
The figure who received that blood with arms spread wide—like a farmer welcoming rain after a long drought—loosed a grotesque howl of laughter.
The Mercenary King, Koyo Blamir.
Gripping that eye-catching greatsword, he stood in a circle that none dared approach. No—everyone was too busy scrambling away from him.
"Lord Blamir, we must withdraw now!"
Charles, drenched in the same spray of blood simply for having been beside him, shouted urgently as he watched Count Selmier and the Empire Coalition knights bearing down on them.
"Keh-heh."
As his laughter faded, Blamir looked toward the onrushing mass of men and horses as if finally acknowledging Charles's words. Then he swept his gaze over his surroundings.
The primary objective—eliminating the lowest-echelon commanders—had already been accomplished. On top of that, they had achieved the splendid feat of taking out a great many senior commanders as well. At the same time, it was equally true that they had lost more people than anticipated.
"Can't be helped."
The smile lingering at his lips faded, leaving only regret.
Much as he relished combat, Blamir also knew when to advance and when to retreat. He had exceeded his initial objectives, but they had also suffered losses greater than expected.
"The conscripts don't much matter, but the mercenary companies will have taken a real beating."
Blamir spat out the blood pooled on his lips, spoke with lingering regret, and nodded to Charles.
The signal to prepare the withdrawal.
"I will begin at once!"
Relief washed over Charles's face at the permission. As the wizard began murmuring a communication spell, Blamir let the sound pass through one ear, regret still lingering on his face.
It was not regret at being denied a fight. A tactic like today's cost a great many lives, and unless the enemy were fools, it would not be easy to employ again. That was precisely why they had pushed beyond their original targets and wrung out every possible result.
And the man now riding onto the field from the Empire Coalition—more precisely, Count Selmier, known as the Divine Sage of the Federal Empire—left him with one lingering regret.
"Withdraw carefully!"
Charles's magical communication must have reached each echelon cleanly, because the mercenaries' fierce resistance gradually subsided and they began withdrawing step by step. Despite the heavy losses, the chaotic melee meant that the slaughter that often accompanied a retreat did not materialize.
No—to be precise—it was because the results Blamir and his mercenaries had wrought had shattered the organic chain of command needed to maneuver a great army.
"Damnation! If the main force were to hit them hard right now, we might actually win this..."
"Idiot. You think their main force is just sitting there sightseeing?"
"Urgh."
Mercenaries with enough experience to read the tides of battle voiced their frustration even as they fell back step by step. Blamir was not the only one who felt the regret.
"Reform the ranks!"
At the voice ringing out from the distance, a glint of interest crossed Blamir's face.
The Holy Empire's forces were unmistakably retreating—and yet, from the Empire Coalition's side, the order echoing across the field was not to pursue and slaughter, but to reform the ranks.
"Looks like they've taken no small damage themselves!"
One of the mercenaries moving near Blamir as part of his close escort called out eagerly.
But Blamir's face bore a gravity beyond anything he had shown before.
In war, the greatest bloodshed occurs during the retreat. Granted, the present situation was not a one-sided rout—but it was still the kind of situation where if the enemy pressed the pursuit, the Holy Empire forces could not avoid taking damage.
And yet, the enemy was choosing to reform their ranks instead.
"Selmier..."
Blamir spoke, killing intent in his voice.
"L-Lord Blamir."
Charles's flustered voice burst out.
The reason: Blamir, who had been slowly withdrawing, had stopped walking. At the same moment, the disciples and mercenaries guarding him halted as if by prior agreement.
"Keh. He's hastening his own death."
Thud.
As if making a show of it, he planted himself and rested the greatsword—over two mir in length—squarely on his shoulder. And again, the wizard Charles's voice reached him.
"Lord Blamir, at a time like this we must hurry our withdrawal—"
"Don't you see? They're doing that so they can properly strike at our rear."
"Sir?"
Charles could not help but ask for clarification.
"Just a brief moment. Brief—but if they reform their ranks even for a short while, the formation will naturally move that much faster. Carrying out a simple order to harry our rear would take only a little reorganization."
"Then all the more reason to hasten the retreat!"
Contrary to Charles's panicked opinion, Blamir's steps were already carrying him back toward the battlefield.
"Annoying."
"You can't be serious!"
"I'm saying I can't stomach the sight of someone waving a sword at my backside. And more importantly—right now, if the supreme commander's head were to go flying, wouldn't they give up the chase? Keh-heh-heh."
With Blamir's eerie laugh riding the wind, he and his personal mercenaries cut through the withdrawing soldiers—and like salmon swimming against the current, they began to surge back upstream.